# Checking Pr Readiness > Use when branch work looks complete and needs a readiness decision before another workflow opens a pull request, or when asked to assess a specific head for PR readiness. Gathers the working surface and checks, then briefs a recommendation plus numbered live options and waits for a numbered reply. Option 1 is Approve. A request to write, open, create, or submit a pull request belongs to PR publishing. For an existing PR about to merge, use checking-merge-readiness. - Skill: `jrgilbertson/checking-pr-readiness` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 8 files) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add jrgilbertson/checking-pr-readiness` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/jrgilbertson/checking-pr-readiness/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: Productivity - License: MIT - Author: jrgilbertson (https://skillmd.com/u/jrgilbertson) - Updated: 2026-09-17 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/jrgilbertson/checking-pr-readiness --- # Checking PR Readiness Check whether a branch is ready to enter the pull request and continuous-integration process. Internally the gate gathers the full working surface, upstream-step receipts, plan-versus-delivered, pre-PR review checks, and learning signal. Then brief a recommendation plus numbered live options and wait for a numbered reply from whoever is talking. The gate is read-only. Companion skills own edits, reviews, and capture; the host repository's hooks and task runners own deterministic re-runs. This skill verifies those from receipts or dispatches the skill that owns them. Nothing is done without evidence in the captured gather. Incomplete gather cannot offer Approve. ## Status words Every check reports with one word from this closed set, used consistently and without synonyms: - **verified** — a named receipt supports the claim in the captured gather, or, for solution simplicity only, this gate's own live fresh dispatch against an unchanged subject does. - **attested** — the owner states missing intent (step 4) and no durable source exists; recorded as attestation, not as evidence. Do not use this word to vouch that a missing review or simplify step happened. - **not verified** — no receipt exists and no attestation was given. Also in the set (same one-token rule): **failed**, **not run**, **skipped**, **unavailable**, **bypassed**, **not applicable**. Use the ordinary meaning of each word; **bypassed** always records the owner's reason. ## Workflow Bind identity first. Read [references/identity-and-argv.md](references/identity-and-argv.md) when capturing the native subject, full head, target/base ref, and full base OID, when proving helper `--base` binding, when rerunning a repository-authored check, and immediately before accepting option 1. ### 1. Gather the working surface The finishing path will stage this surface. Create an owner-only `mktemp -d` directory outside the target repository first; capture helper stdout there and do not echo the inventory into chat. Do not remove that directory while the run is waiting for a numbered reply. Run [scripts/surface-report.sh](scripts/surface-report.sh) when it is present and executable. Pass `--full` so the listing written to temp includes every path. The same run supplies step 6's informational size diagnostics; optional `--cap` values and their interpretation live in [references/sweep-classes.md](references/sweep-classes.md) class 11. Always produce the surface report on this run (omit `--defer` even when a repository gate owns a size check). Otherwise gather the same four categories directly with git: committed on this branch against the merge base with the default branch the pull request will target (resolve it from the remote's HEAD, and ask when the target is ambiguous), plus staged, unstaged, and untracked paths. List untracked paths with the same weight as tracked ones. Finishing tools stage them, so they ship with the change even though no diff command shows them by default. If the working tree is not a git repository, or git is unavailable, stop rather than composing a brief from a surface you could not read. An unresolved base, unmeasurable committed category, failed git enumeration, or omitted path leaves the gather incomplete and withholds Approve, regardless of any size verdict. Completion: every path in all four categories is in the captured surface report, or the run stopped because the working surface could not be read from git. Then apply the repository's transient-artifact policy. Resolve its path families from repository instructions and ignore rules. Enumerate the final tracked contents of those families with `git ls-files --cached`, and enumerate their ignored working contents with `git ls-files --others --ignored --exclude-standard`. Pass the same content-scoped pathspecs after `--` to both commands, such as `:(top)docs/plans/**`; do not enumerate unrelated ignored trees. Use `git check-ignore -v` to identify the owning ignore rule for ignored files. Search durable files for citations to every named transient family, including families with no current file. - An ignored file with no index entry or branch addition is working material. It does not ship and is allowed. - A transient file present in the final tracked tree, staged as content, or added on the branch is a blocking finding. Remove it before approval; an owner disposition that accepts the file does not clear readiness. A branch deletion that removes old transient content is cleanup, not a finding. - A durable file that cites or depends on ignored working material is a finding until the dependency is removed or the durable conclusion is moved to its canonical home. Completion: the tracked and ignored enumerations cover every resolved family; every transient hit is classified as ignored working material, cleanup, or a finding; and every durable citation is accounted for. If either enumeration is incomplete, stop rather than treating an incomplete inventory as clean. ### 2. Gather repository gates Discover the host repository's own deterministic gates before any model-judgment check. Read the repository's agent-instruction and contribution documents and its conventional hook and task-runner configuration (git hook and hook-manager files, task-runner and package manifests, and continuous-integration workflow definitions), and take the gates they name. List the conventional paths first and read only the sections that define gates. Search for hook, script, and job names before any full-file read rather than pulling whole workflow files into the conversation. Record each discovered gate with a status word and with what owns it, off chat. Record hook coverage and whether it has run on the current surface; leave re-running to the hook. When discovery finds no repository-owned gates, record that emptiness as unavailable. Silence is not a pass. Completion: every discovered gate carries one status word and its owner, and an empty discovery is a named finding in the gather. ### 3. Verify upstream steps from receipts Record each expected upstream step with a status word in the gather: code review, code simplification, solution simplicity, browser testing, design critique or audit, and learnings capture. Solution simplicity is the independent, approach-level result from `checking-simplicity`. It is primarily user-requested and may also run before ungrounded durable machinery enters implementation; its place here is a late backstop, not the recommended first checkpoint. Before dispatching it, resolve the intent source step 4 uses and supply the reviewer with the objective, required behavior, hard constraints, and verification criteria. Browser testing and design critique apply only to diffs that touch user-interface files; record how that classification was decided from the paths in the working surface, and surface an uncertain classification rather than resolving it silently. Use this receipt inventory to decide between verified and the honest alternatives: - Durable receipts: design-critique snapshots (for example `.impeccable/critique/` frontmatter carrying a score and P0/P1 counts) and solutions documents present in the working surface. A receipt counts only when it identifies this branch's change; a document that covers unrelated work is not a receipt for it. - Browser testing leaves a receipt only when its output or screenshots were saved; otherwise it has none. - Solution simplicity is verified by this gate's own dispatch, not by a receipt. After step 1, dispatch `checking-simplicity` with the resolved intent source, the repository, branch, and full `HEAD`, and all four path categories with their complete current contents, read from the index or as link objects so a symlink is transferred as its link text and never followed; that skill owns the reviewer's independence and how it reads the subject. The result is verified only when it recommends keeping the current approach, no user question remains, and nothing on the surface changed after the dispatch, confirmed by re-reading the intent source and the full contents of all four path categories rather than comparing path names. A result that recommends simplifying first, or that needs a user decision, is failed until the subject is revised or the decision made and the dispatch repeated. A result that cannot assess yet, or that came from an older or same-context run, is not verified. - Code review, code simplification, and solution simplicity leave no durable artifact today, so outside the session that ran them they are not verified. Solution simplicity is never verified by attestation, because its fresh dispatch and unchanged subject are part of the check. Write verified only with the receipt named in the gather, or for solution simplicity with the live dispatch and unchanged subject named. Where neither exists, record not verified. Do not ask anyone to vouch that it happened. When the companion skill or tooling a check depends on is absent (no compound engineering plugin, no `checking-simplicity`, no design-critique tooling), record that check skipped, name what was missing, and run the rest of the checks. Completion: each of the six steps carries one status word in the captured gather, every verified step names its receipt or its live dispatch, and the user-interface classification and its basis are stated. ### 4. Compare intent to what was delivered Use the linked issue or ticket first, then the brief the work started from. A repository plan is optional and counts only when that repository maintains plans as durable documentation. An ignored working plan may help the current comparison, but it is not a durable source and must not appear in pull-request evidence. Compare the source against the working surface in the gather. Intended items not delivered and work delivered beyond the source are intent drift. A linked issue or brief is sufficient; the absence of a separate plan is not a finding. When no issue, brief, or durable repository plan exists, record the comparison unavailable, name that absence as a finding, and take a direct attestation of what the branch was meant to do, recorded as attested. Completion: every planned item is marked delivered or not delivered in the gather, or the comparison is recorded unavailable with intent attestation. ### 5. Check the learning signal Carry exactly one durable-learning signal in the gather: - a solutions document covering this branch's work exists in the working surface; or - an explicit capture plan or follow-up exists; or - a recorded reason this branch produced no durable learning. Capture is the recommended path. Approving past an uncaptured and unplanned learning requires an explicit override, reported as bypassed and recorded with the stated reason in the evidence pack. Completion: the gather carries exactly one of the three signals, and any approval past an uncaptured learning carries the recorded reason. ### 6. Run the Pre-PR Review Checks Read [references/sweep-classes.md](references/sweep-classes.md) and work every class in the order listed there. Record verdicts in the captured gather in that order. Mechanical classes run through the bundled helpers: - [scripts/surface-report.sh](scripts/surface-report.sh) for diff size (class 11): reuse step 1's run. Class 11 owns optional cap diagnostics and their distinction from actual review coverage. - [scripts/evidence-freshness.sh](scripts/evidence-freshness.sh) for stale records and plan-named artifacts (classes 4 and 2 support). - [scripts/changelog-union.sh](scripts/changelog-union.sh) for branch changelog entry (class 3). `changelog-union.sh` and `evidence-freshness.sh` defer when the host repository owns an equivalent check: invoke them as ` --defer ` with the gate step 2 found, and record that class as covered by that gate. When a repository gate owns the size check, record class 11 as covered by that gate; its actual result remains in step 2. When step 1 already resolved the target branch or merge base, pass it through to `surface-report.sh` and `changelog-union.sh` (`--base ` or `--merge-base `). `evidence-freshness.sh` resolves no base and accepts neither flag. Every remaining class runs by model instruction from the reference, in one pass: read the branch diff once and apply every judgment class to that single reading rather than re-reading the diff per class. Map helper exit codes and `verdict:` lines to status words using the table in [references/sweep-classes.md](references/sweep-classes.md). Completion: every class in the reference carries one verdict from that class's enumerated set in the captured gather, and each class that fired names where it fired: the file and line for a line-scoped finding, the file alone for a file-level one, and the repository surface for a repository-level one. ### 7. Present the recommendation Complete steps 1 through 6 fully first. Then brief in continuous prose: recommendation first, then only the reasons that make it true, then evidence under those reasons. Numbered live options follow the brief. - One recommendation (approve and proceed; request changes; or stop and file follow-up). Open on the decision, not the working-surface inventory. - Reasons, one idea each, most decision-relevant first. Reasons are about the change under review, not how this gate runs. A clean outcome is one residual clause that grading found nothing material. - Evidence sits only under the reasons that drove the call, with source pointers. The check inventory is Show the checks, not the default brief. - Numbered live options after the brief. Only option 1 is reserved. Print Approve and proceed when that action can be taken; otherwise keep number 1 and name why. The remaining actions have a print order, not menu numbers. Print only the live ones, numbered from 2 without gaps. The spoken answer on every wait is that wait's own prose and numbered options. This skill, its headings, its file path, and why the run is waiting stay out of it. Nothing follows the last option. - Clean green (approve and proceed, nothing material): final brief plus menu at most about 12 non-blank short lines. - A coverage close: gather completed, and every applicable check is verified, not applicable, or recorded without a receipt. Incomplete gather cannot offer Approve. - Name a check in the brief only when it drives the recommendation. Spoken next work is owner work that still remains after this decision. When the recommendation is approve, that remaining path is opening the pull request and babysitting it. When the recommendation is approve, unrun code review or simplify do not appear in that brief as leftover work. Untracked or blocking paths appear when they drive the call. Paths touching authentication, authorization, payments, data migrations, secrets handling, or a published API contract stay visible when they have a finding or an incomplete check. #### Decision menu Present exactly one decision menu, then wait for a numbered reply. Do not pick an option in the same turn that wrote the menu. A turn is one reply. Print only the brief and the numbered options, then stop. The next message in the conversation, from whoever is talking, is the pick. A reply of `1`, "Approve", or "approve and proceed" counts as that choice only after the menu offered Approve, not after it printed a withheld option-1 row. A `1` on a withheld row is not Approve. Name that the action cannot be taken and wait again. Do not enter the finishing path. The activating utterance never authorizes Approve. Print order, not menu numbers. Number 1 is the reserved Approve-and-proceed slot. When that action can be taken, print it. When it cannot, keep number 1 and name why. Number the remaining live actions from 2 without gaps. - Approve and proceed to the finishing path. Offer only when gather is complete and the recommendation is approve and proceed. A check named as next work does not by itself withhold Approve. - Address remaining changes. Offer on every menu, including an approve recommendation. This is the numbered alternative to Approve, not a fixed slot. On approve it declines Approve rather than inventing leftover changes. On request changes, picking it does not start work. Print every remaining item that drove that recommendation in one follow-up. That follow-up is a question, not the decision menu: a reply of 1 is not Approve. Follow-up actions are that remaining work. Unrun code review or simplify appear here only when they drove the recommendation. Option 1 does all recommended remaining items and names them in that sentence. Later options are the same items as individual actions, grouped by similar work, ordered by impact. Skip an individual option that would repeat option 1. Offer leaving the remaining changes last. Picking a follow-up action starts that work. If nothing remains to do in this session, the remaining work is the outcome and this gate ends. - Explain the change, when `ce-explain` is present. - Show the checks. Offer when a captured gather exists. List each applicable check and its status word from that gather: repository gates, upstream steps, sweep classes that applied, and the learning signal. Then present the brief and numbered options again. The spoken line names the checks this PR-readiness review ran. - Stop and file follow-up work. Offer when the recommendation is stop and file follow-up, or the brief named leftover work to file. This ends the finishing path and parks that leftover in the tracker instead of opening a pull request. Skip it when there is nothing to file. Print option 1 on every menu. When Approve cannot be taken, keep number 1 and name why in a natural sentence; that withheld row does not print the Approve action. Do not reuse option 1 for another action. Number the remaining live actions from 2 without gaps, in the print order above. Write each option as a sentence, not a label then a colon. Example when Approve is blocked, Address remaining changes is live, and Explain and leftover work to file are not: ```text 1. This branch is not ready because remaining source findings still block it. 2. Address the remaining changes on this branch. 3. Show the checks this PR-readiness review ran. ``` Example when Approve is live and Address remaining changes is the alternative: ```text 1. Approve and proceed to the finishing path. 2. Address the remaining changes on this branch. 3. Show the checks this PR-readiness review ran. ``` Example after option 2 on a request-changes recommendation. This wait is the follow-up question, not the decision menu: ```text Remaining work: resolve the CHANGELOG conflict with main, align README terminology with CHANGELOG.md:20, and finish the stopped actionlint check. 1. Do all remaining work: resolve the CHANGELOG conflict, align README terminology, and finish the stopped actionlint check. 2. Resolve the CHANGELOG conflict and README terminology mismatch. 3. Finish the stopped actionlint check now. 4. Leave these remaining changes for a later fix. ``` Show the checks is non-terminal: print the list from the captured gather, then the brief and numbered options again. Starting remaining work from the follow-up, and Explain, are non-terminal: when one finishes, **recompose**. Re-read the working surface from step 1 and, when it changed, re-run the steps whose inputs the change touches. A returned `checking-simplicity` result refreshes step 3 even when no path changed; that skill is read-only and returns its finding to this gate. When that result is a question for the user, print the question with its options and wait; the next reply answers it and goes back to the same reviewer, and only the readout that follows refreshes step 3 and recomposes this menu. Completion of this turn: the brief and numbered live options are on screen, and the run is waiting. Identity re-read and the evidence pack belong to a later reply of 1. ### On a later reply of 1 If the run is waiting on the remaining-changes follow-up, a reply of 1 is do-all remaining work, not Approve. Do not apply the withheld-1 rule to that wait. If the menu printed a withheld option-1 row, do not approve. Name that Approve cannot be taken and wait again. Do not enter the finishing path. Before accepting Approve, re-read HEAD, the merge-base, and staged, unstaged, and untracked content per [references/identity-and-argv.md](references/identity-and-argv.md). If any of those moved, name what moved, rebuild, and do not continue as if the old surface were still current. The already-typed 1 does not approve the rebuilt gather. A matching re-read is silent. Discover the installed skill that owns opening a pull request the same way `ce-explain` is: when that skill is present. WORKFLOWS.md's example is `ce-commit-push-pr`. Then follow [references/finishing.md](references/finishing.md), which invokes that skill once. A Worker is a run already executing the `repo-gardener` Worker contract; that file branches on that fact. Do not keep a second gardener-only publisher. If this conversation has no finishing path, name that once and stop. Do not re-ask Approve. Do not fill or print a pack. Option 1 accepted readiness; publishing still needs an installed finishing companion. When finishing is present, instantiate [assets/evidence-pack-template.md](assets/evidence-pack-template.md) in-process: the recommendation, material next work after the pull request exists (or `none`), a coverage close, and the learning signal with any recorded override. Do not write the filled pack back to that asset. Do not print `## Evidence pack` as a readout. Pass the pack to the selected finishing path, which owns its destination: ordinary publication writes it into the pull request description. Continue into that path in this same conversation. That path must not re-ask the same Approve. This skill still does not itself stage, commit, push, open, or merge a pull request. The Approve 1 is consumed when finishing starts. It never selects Proceed to merge. Sanitize the pack for durable use. Summarize intent from the selected durable intent source: a linked issue or ticket, a brief, or a maintained repository plan. When step 4 found no durable source, summarize the recorded intent attestation instead. Do not copy ignored-plan paths or contents, local-only paths, credentials, or unnecessary personal data. Completion: a matching silent re-read, then silent pack plus continue into finishing, including finishing.md, a named missing-path stop with no pack, or a named rebuild with no pack. This skill wrote nothing to the repository. Remove the step 1 temp directory after this later turn, when a non-1 later turn ends the run, or on failure. ## Gotchas - Untracked paths ship with finishing tools; include them in what option 1 approves. - Green CI is not evidence that upstream steps ran. - Work that may change files is limited to a remaining-changes follow-up pick and the option-1 finishing dispatch. A companion skill or repository gate owns those writes. The gate itself still does not stage, commit, push, open, or merge a pull request. - A dead session needs a fresh gate. There is no pasteable pack to restock. - When `checking-merge-readiness` is also installed, a non-Worker option-1 reply continues into it only after babysit looks merge-ready or cautiously looks ready, in a fresh uninvolved context. A Worker option-1 reply does not dispatch it; the Orchestrator starts that helper after looks merge-ready or cautiously looks ready. This gate still does not merge. If merge-readiness is absent after babysit on a non-Worker run, name that once and stop.